


It Goes Like This

by Mellomailbox



Series: Baby Dragons and other founders of Republic City [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Multi, Politics, Polyamory, Post-Finale, Republic City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellomailbox/pseuds/Mellomailbox
Summary: A little random stream of consciousness written like a timeline regarding the gang post finale. This is the basis for ant ficlets I'll write (or ang3lba3) in this universe.  I wrote this while they were napping, so the content and quality is all due to me tryin' to roam unattended.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong/Sokka
Series: Baby Dragons and other founders of Republic City [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721398
Comments: 15
Kudos: 241





	It Goes Like This

**Author's Note:**

> A little random stream of consciousness written like a timeline regarding the gang post finale. This is the basis for ant ficlets I'll write (or ang3lba3) in this universe. I wrote this while they were napping, so the content and quality is all due to me tryin' to roam unattended.

It goes like this.

During the war, in the Eastern Air Temple, he and Zuko share a room. They’re finally with someone their own age; 18, angry, horny, and wise beyond their years. Toph’s the most fun person Sokka’s ever met, and Suki’s fucking gorgeous and brilliant, but Zuko is-- 

Zuko’s _fire_ , and while Suki can kick his ass and Toph regularly lays him out on his face, Zuko’s dangerous in a way that exhilarates Sokka, in that he’s not actually afraid of him. 

He understands him in a way that he can’t relate to the others. They have minds for the big picture in a way that Aang and Katara only pretend to. They talk politics, and history, and religion, comparing what they know with each other, finding links and gaps and extrapolating from that. 

It goes smoothly, enemies to friends. They map the temple, and then the nations, sometimes with Aang’s input but usually without. They hike away from the temple and into the mountains, sparring with weapons and hands and wit. 

“Why do you act like such a moron?” Zuko asks Sokka, frank and unblinking. Sokka picks at his nails and cuts his eyes away, but his smile is sharp. 

“You underestimated me, didn’t you?” He points out, and Zuko can’t even fathom allowing his reputation to be tarnished simply for tactical advantage. There’s no honor in it. 

He says as much, and Sokka rolls his eyes and sharpens his boomerang, the bone firm and familiar between his fingers. “Why do you pretend to care about honor?” Sokka shoots back. Zuko gapes and glowers, but Sokka doesn’t relent, movements sure as the tide. 

“It’s my heritage,” Zuko tries, and Sokka taps his boomerang. 

“So’s this. And this,” and he taps his temple, leaning back to appraise Zuko, openly, eyes dropping to the tie of his robe. “I still set it aside when I know that my sword or my maps are more effective.” 

“You can’t set aside _honor_ and pick it back up like a, a _toy._ ” Zuko scoffs, standing and storming away. Sokka watches him go, grin wide. 

***

It goes like this:

Middle of the night, sharing heat for warmth at the top of a mountain, in their own room in the temple, hands and mouths and gasps and sweat and dirt and, “ _oh, oh, oh,”_ like a prayer to the moon as she watches over them, beams like absolution across their bodies. 

***

It goes like this: 

They win the war Aang’s way, because he’s the Avatar and he’s 15 and bright eyed and the product of his culture. Maybe he’s not wrong, but he's not right, either. 

Ozai’s stripped of his bending and placed in the palace prisons. There are riots, and pillaging, and lots of death in the upcoming weeks. Ozai initiates a coup. Mai and Toph collect the traitors, and Aang begs them to be banished, not executed. 

They do things Aang’s way, because he is the Avatar and Zuko needs his approval like he needs water, like he needs Sokka and Toph sharing his room, Mai guarding the door, Aang and Katara down the hall. They’ll be leaving for the tribes soon, Toph towards the Earth Kingdom with Iroh to meet with Kuei.

There’s still unfinished business. 

“You shouldn’t wait,” Sokka mutters where they’re bent over a pile of scrolls in the repurposed war room. Katara suggested burning it down, for closure, but Zuko wants to face his fears like the stubborn self sacrificing moron he is. Well, maybe it’s more than self sacrifice and closer to something darker, something rotting inside of him, but Sokka’s not smart enough or insightful enough to see it just yet. 

“He’s probably already plotting,” Zuko agrees. “But Aang--” 

“If we’re gone, and it capsizes,” Sokka warns, worry thickening his voice. Zuko squeezes his hand briefly before pulling it back and hiding it in his robe. 

“Tonight,” He agrees, and Sokka nods. 

“I’ll distract Toph. Not that I think she’ll object, but. She’s been having nightmares, and I don’t--” 

“I know,” Zuko sighs. “I know.” 

***

“So it goes like this,” Ozai says, low and hateful as he stares into deep, blue eyes. “My son’s too cowardly to face me, and instead sends a backwater mutt to handle things for him. Typical.” 

Katara steps closer, water taking shape, a dagger forming with barely a twitch of her fingers. The moon shines through the skylight, illuminating the black scarf she has wrapped around her face. 

“This isn’t your right,” Zuko warns, stepping out of the shadows. “Killing a Fire Nation citizen is an act of war, Katara.” 

They regard each other for a moment, Ozai spitting insults through the bars, before Katara flips the knife hiltwards at Zuko. He takes it, and Ozai begs. 

***

It goes like this: 

“The Four Nations cannot continue to live in harmony while maintaining their isolation,” Aang says. “The ways of the past did not work back then, and there is no reason to believe that they will work now.” He looks to Zuko, taller now, hair pinned back and in his ceremonial robes. Aang, on the other hand, is much the same as he was, wearing simple robes, barefoot as they address the Fire Nation together in their first of many conferences. 

“Nationalism and violence have led my people for too long. We open our borders to all Nations as if they were our own. A crime unto them is a crime unto us; as such, success upon them is success upon the Fire Nation. I gladly support your vision, Avatar, and will assist with building a world in which all nations can live in harmony together.” 

They shake hands. Aang smiles with his whole body, mouth and eyes and ears. Zuko doesn’t, out of decorum, instead squeezing Aang’s hand and whispering, “congratulations, Sifu Hotman.” 

Aang laughs at their shared secret, open and honest. Fire Lord Zuko hopes it will last. 

***

It goes like this: 

Katara and Aang on Appa, searching for acolytes, chasing rumors of escaped airbender ancestors. Sokka stays with Zuko and Toph, the three of them working together for a home of neutrality, where red and green and blue can share a drink together safely. 

Hakoda returns to the Southern Water tribe with Bato and a child rescued from a Fire Nation pirate raid, a second chance at raising a child now that Sokka and Katara are warriors. Suki and Ty Lee open a school in the Earth Kingdom that teaches both Chi blocking and Kyoshi fighting to all girls of all nations. It grows, and they open more, in the poles and the old colonies and the Fire Nation, too. 

Toph stays for a year before moving into newly birthed Republic City, their man on the ground. Even with Hawkie communication isn’t as effective as when they’re all together, so Sokka stays at the Fire Palace as a Water Tribe and Avatar ambassador, representing both is tribe and Aang to the Fire Nation. This also allows him and Zuko to work together on their Republic City project along with Toph, arguably the riskiest and most dangerous undertaking yet.

Mai stays as Zuko’s head of security while taking on Ty Lee as a consort. She and Zuko marry at 20, securing the Lordship. 

Life settles. 

Sokka writes to Suki, because they started dating in the middle of a war and the kind of bond that creates can’t be abandoned. Suki thinks she probably likes women, and Sokka thinks he’s happy where he is, but they’ve been together since the war, and they love each other, so they write. 

Toph and Sokka get into trouble, usually dragging Zuko along. It’s once when they don’t that they get into _trouble._

“I’ve got a heart of rock, meathead,” Toph tells him, belligerent. “Don’t fall in love with me.” 

“I’m in love with two people already, what’s one more?” Sokka jokes, and fits his face between her legs before she can answer.

***

It goes like this: 

Toph and Sokka break up, and Toph’s 18 and angry and important and _tired_ of being ignored. 

“Don’t fall in love with me,” she tells him, and her, and them, and her again. She’s beautiful and brilliant and strong and can kick Toph’s ass at arm wrestling, and the best part is that she has no idea who any of Toph’s friends are and doesn’t care. 

“I’m pregnant,” Toph tells her, and she blows out smoke and shoulders her bag. Toph hates the docks, can’t feel for shit, can’t _see._ Salt stings her face, numbing the kiss to the cheek. 

“Good luck,” she says. “I didn’t fall in love with you.” 

Toph twists her lips and barely recognizes the tapping of footsteps as they head down the docks.

***

It goes like this: 

The spirits are elated to have Aang back. They find acolytes of all kinds, some benders and some not. After travel and trust and hope, they discover that some of the air nomads left the temples to live among the other nations, were gone before the genocide or escaped during it. 

People of all ages begin to airbend. 

The temples repopulate with those strong enough to navigate them. For some, airbending’s way of life isn’t compatible. Air is a state of mind, and those from the Earth Kingdom in particular tend to struggle, finding peace with the spirituality of being a monk rather than strengthening their bending. For them, Aang creates airbender island and attached it’s neutrality to Republic City. 

***

It goes like this: 

Azula weeps, and screams, and breathes fire. Aang takes her bending at her own request. They both know she’s deadly enough with tongue and teeth. 

Azula hates, and Zuko, somehow, loves. Years pass, and Azula heals. She hates, but she heals. The cell turns to bedroom turns to assassination attempt turns to cell. So the cycle continues. 

Iroh visits her every night when he’s home from Republic City, taking her tea and scrolls and brushes and paints.

Azula hates, and she weeps, and she paints, and drinks tea. She and Zuko both dream of Ember Island. 

***

It goes like this: 

Assassination attempts, riots, uprising, cults, human trafficking, violence, art, music, babies, weddings, funerals, illnessess and congresses and reparations. 

Kisses in the dark, in the heat and the cold, wind whipping faces and rain pelting backs and stifled moans and shameless keens. 

Conversations and letters and songs and poems and paintings and dances and laughter and drinking. Crying and screaming, night terrors, day terrors, crumbling resolves and strengthening respect. 

It goes a little bit like life and death and rebirth. 


End file.
